Actions for selected content:

Send content to

To send content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about sending content to .

To send content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services
Please confirm that you accept the terms of use.

Since its introduction in the late 19th century, symmetry breaking has been found to play a crucial role in physics. In particular, it appears as one key phenomenon controlling hydrodynamic and acoustic instabilities in problems with rotational symmetries. A previous paper investigated its desired potential application to the control of circumferential thermoacoustic modes in one annular cavity coupled with multiple flames (Bauerheim et al., J. Fluid Mech., vol. 760, 2014, pp. 431–465). The present paper focuses on a similar problem when symmetry breaking appears unintentionally, for example when uncertainties due to tolerances are taken into account. It yields a large uncertainty quantification (UQ) problem containing numerous uncertain parameters. To tackle this well-known ‘curse of dimensionality’, a novel UQ methodology is used. It relies on the active subspace approach to construct a reduced set of input variables. This strategy is applied on two annular cavities coupled by 19 flames to determine its modal risk factor, i.e. the probability of an azimuthal acoustic mode being unstable. Since each flame is modelled by two uncertain parameters, it leads to a large UQ problem involving 38 parameters. An acoustic network model is then derived, which yields a nonlinear dispersion relation for azimuthal modes. This nonlinear problem, subject to bifurcations, is solved quasi-analytically. Results show that the dimension of the probabilistic problem can be drastically reduced, from 38 uncertain parameters to only 3. Moreover, it is found that the three active variables are related to physical quantities, which unveils underlying phenomena controlling the stability of the two coupled cavities. The first active variable is associated with a coupling strength controlling the bifurcation of the system, while the two others correspond to a symmetry-breaking effect induced by the uncertainties. Thus, an additional destabilization effect appear caused by the non-uniform pattern of the uncertainty distribution, which breaks the initial rotating symmetry of the annular cavities. Finally, the active subspace is exploited by fitting the response surface with polynomials (linear, quadratic and cubic). By comparing accuracy and cost, results prove that 5 % error can be achieved with only 30 simulations on the reduced space, whereas 2000 are required on the complete initial space. It exemplifies that this novel UQ technique can accurately predict the risk factor of an annular configuration at low cost as well as unveil key parameters controlling the stability.

Many physical problems containing rotating symmetry exhibit azimuthal waves, from electromagnetic waves in nanophotonic crystals to seismic waves in giant stars. When this symmetry is broken, clockwise (CW) and counter-clockwise (CCW) waves are split into two distinct modes which can become unstable. This paper focuses on a theoretical study of symmetry breaking in annular cavities containing a number
$N$
of flames prone to azimuthal thermo-acoustic instabilities. A general dispersion relation for non-perfectly-axisymmetric cavities is obtained and analytically solved to provide an explicit expression for the frequencies and growth rates of all azimuthal modes of the configuration. This analytical study unveils two parameters affecting the stability of the mode: (i) a coupling strength corresponding to the cumulative effects of the
$N$
flames and (ii) a splitting strength due to the symmetry breaking when the flames are different. This theory has been validated using a 3D Helmholtz solver and good agreement is found. When only two types of flames are introduced into the annular cavity, the splitting strength is found to depend on two parameters: the difference between the two burner types and the pattern used to distribute the flames along the azimuthal direction. To first order, this theory suggests that the most stable configuration is obtained for a perfectly axisymmetric configuration. Therefore, breaking the symmetry by mixing different flames cannot improve the stability of an annular combustor independently of the flame distribution pattern.

Large-eddy simulations of a generic turbulent flow with discrete effusion are reported. The computational domain is periodic in both streamwise and spanwise directions and contains both the injection and the suction sides. The blowing ratio is close to 1.2 while the Reynolds number in the aperture is of order 2600. The numerical results for this fully developed bi-periodic turbulent flow with effusion are compared to available experimental data from a large-scale spatially evolving isothermal configuration. It is shown that many features are shared by the two flow configurations. The main difference is related to the mean streamwise velocity profile, which is more flat for the bi-periodic situation where the cumulative effect of an infinite number of upstream jets is accounted for. The necessity of considering both sides of the plate is also established by analysing the vortical structure of the flow and some differences with the classical jet-in-crossflow case are highlighted. Finally, the numerical results are analysed in terms of wall modelling for full-coverage film cooling. For the operating point considered, it is demonstrated that the streamwise momentum flux is dominated by non-viscous effects, although the area where only the viscous shear stress contributes is very large given the small porosity value (4%).

Recommend this

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.